Rating: 
Summary: Globalization and the Swiss bank accounts of its discontents
Review: Behind the headline portrait of terrorism lies a more complex picture of the underground economy of its exemplars in the shadows of globalization and finance hybridized with organized crime and the backwash of the old left. This alarming reality with its ability to exploit stunningly large resources is acutely portrayed in this well-researched and eye-opening depiction of the 'state shell' phenomenon created by these interlocked combinations from Columbian guerillas to the IRA to the PLO and Islamist groups of the Middle East and beyond. Although we can and must indict these consequences of capitalist and colonialist social Darwinism (and state terrorism) we find no Robin Hoods or religious mystics in these cynical gangs gripped by the phantom of jihad and their ample investment portfolios.
Rating: 
Summary: food for thought plus
Review: I am very well read on the middle east and terrorism but this book which I checked out of the library is completely different.Assuming her facts are true (my mother told me not to beleive everything I read)then I was seriously flawed in my knowledge.I liked this so much I brought it back to the library and then purchased it.
Rating:
Summary: a courageous look at our world
Review: I generally do not write reviews, but I decided to do it because Loretta Napoleoni book is one of the fews I have read recently which offer a global explanation of what is happening. I know the Middle East well and can say that her facts are accurate. She also writes beatifully, I could not put down the book.
i reccomend this book to those who want to find answers to the many questions of our complex world.
Rating:
Summary: Reviewed Before Finished
Review: I heard the author lecture at a bookstore in lower Manhattan, and although I initially hesitated buying her book - the beginning of her lecture began too "soft" - I later broached harder economic questions, which she deftly answered. Impressed, or at least positively engaged, I bought the book. I'm finding it well written and well researched, and I'm surprised that it weaves together much common, but fragmented, knowledge into a cohesive review of terrorist financing, without the partiality common to politically/ideologically oriented analyses.
Rating: 
Summary: Hasty journalism but overwhelming evidence
Review: I'm given Loretta Napoleoni's book on the finance of terror, "Modern Jihad", the once-over. It is sloppy in execution. She cites 100s of newspaper articles, with no effort to assess their accuracy or reliability. She also uses some academic papers and books, again uncritically. Her account has a breathless tonality - the activities of terrorists are reported with insufficient attention to balancing forces. In one example, she tells us that in one year, commercial ventures tied to efforts to expand Islamic influence expanded trade in Indonesia from $600k to $1.24M - surely small potatos. But the extent of the reports is sufficient to overcome uncertainty on the details as to her key point, the extent of terrorism and how closely it is tied to the international economy. Appropo to the point of the Times story, terrorists use the instruments and opportunities of international finance that where pioneered by states and corporations. The broad story she tells is that terrorism was often initiated by states as part of counter-insurgency plans; she begins with French and US activities in Vietnam, skims through Central America, Columbia, and Afgahnistan. The techniques developed and disseminated by these were appropriated and "privatized", and eventually developed and linked in a "new economy of terror." This includes investments in normal business enterprises as well as money-laundering and trafficking in drugs and arms. In some regions, the terrorist groups have established "state shells" which imitate some aspects of states in their monopoly on violence and control of the economy, often including the provision of social services to the population. Like fuedal lords, those controlling state shells can appropriate resources from the local economy (where they don't kill it) and collect taxes or impose duties on trade. There is sometimes collusion between these state shells and legitimate states. Napoleoni leaves me with the impression that there are three possible courses of action: 1) Coordinated international action to force much stricter controls on flows of money, people, arms, and drugs, including anti-smuggling efforts in Central Asia and many other regions, and success in bringing state-shells back under the control of legitimate governments; 2) A surge of international justice, openess, and transparency, including redistribution of profits, alleviation of poverty, increased education, and reform of repressive governments, thus removing the conditions that foster terrorism; 3) Terrorism is going to be with us for the long hall as patchwork efforts in controlling it occasionally succeed and often fail. The Bush administration believes strongly in policing, option 1, and gives limited recognition but little support to option 2. We're not powerful enough to police the world by ourselves, and the more we try the more the incentives for other nations to obstruct us in more or less covert ways. The outcome can only be 3.
Rating:
Summary: Hasty journalism but overwhelming evidence
Review: I'm given Loretta Napoleoni's book on the finance of terror, "Modern Jihad", the once-over. It is sloppy in execution. She cites 100s of newspaper articles, with no effort to assess their accuracy or reliability. She also uses some academic papers and books, again uncritically. Her account has a breathless tonality - the activities of terrorists are reported with insufficient attention to balancing forces. In one example, she tells us that in one year, commercial ventures tied to efforts to expand Islamic influence expanded trade in Indonesia from $600k to $1.24M - surely small potatos. But the extent of the reports is sufficient to overcome uncertainty on the details as to her key point, the extent of terrorism and how closely it is tied to the international economy. Appropo to the point of the Times story, terrorists use the instruments and opportunities of international finance that where pioneered by states and corporations. The broad story she tells is that terrorism was often initiated by states as part of counter-insurgency plans; she begins with French and US activities in Vietnam, skims through Central America, Columbia, and Afgahnistan. The techniques developed and disseminated by these were appropriated and "privatized", and eventually developed and linked in a "new economy of terror." This includes investments in normal business enterprises as well as money-laundering and trafficking in drugs and arms. In some regions, the terrorist groups have established "state shells" which imitate some aspects of states in their monopoly on violence and control of the economy, often including the provision of social services to the population. Like fuedal lords, those controlling state shells can appropriate resources from the local economy (where they don't kill it) and collect taxes or impose duties on trade. There is sometimes collusion between these state shells and legitimate states. Napoleoni leaves me with the impression that there are three possible courses of action: 1) Coordinated international action to force much stricter controls on flows of money, people, arms, and drugs, including anti-smuggling efforts in Central Asia and many other regions, and success in bringing state-shells back under the control of legitimate governments; 2) A surge of international justice, openess, and transparency, including redistribution of profits, alleviation of poverty, increased education, and reform of repressive governments, thus removing the conditions that foster terrorism; 3) Terrorism is going to be with us for the long hall as patchwork efforts in controlling it occasionally succeed and often fail. The Bush administration believes strongly in policing, option 1, and gives limited recognition but little support to option 2. We're not powerful enough to police the world by ourselves, and the more we try the more the incentives for other nations to obstruct us in more or less covert ways. The outcome can only be 3.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing revelations
Review: Loretta Napoleoni is a brilliant writer and thinker. Her knowledge of history and finance is encylopaedic.
She is true to her mission of not falling into the "trap of politics" and stays with the global economic analysis. Brilliant analyses and brilliant syntheses. If her suggested solution is simple, it is not simplistic. It is perhaps impossible because it appears that our economy is too dependent on the illicit economies--money laundering, drug money, arms deals, and so on. It is a shame that there is not more interest in this book. I feel like buying it for everyone I know. If you get bogged down, start speed reading--you will quickly come to numerous passages that will be as revelations, and you will want to read them twice. As a previous reviewer commented-it's the global aspect of this book that makes it significant. The section on our government's conniving with the Taliban for the oil, as well as the explanation of the situation in Chechyna, even if it may be too quick and dirty for the scholarly, makes an excellent starting point for those of us who are in the dark. I found much of it to be an astonishing revelation Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing revelations
Review: Loretta Napoleoni is a brilliant writer and thinker. Her knowledge of history and finance is encylopaedic.
She is true to her mission of not falling into the "trap of politics" and stays with the global economic analysis. Brilliant analyses and brilliant syntheses. If her suggested solution is simple, it is not simplistic. It is perhaps impossible because it appears that our economy is too dependent on the illicit economies--money laundering, drug money, arms deals, and so on. It is a shame that there is not more interest in this book. I feel like buying it for everyone I know. If you get bogged down, start speed reading--you will quickly come to numerous passages that will be as revelations, and you will want to read them twice. As a previous reviewer commented-it's the global aspect of this book that makes it significant. The section on our government's conniving with the Taliban for the oil, as well as the explanation of the situation in Chechyna, even if it may be too quick and dirty for the scholarly, makes an excellent starting point for those of us who are in the dark. I found much of it to be an astonishing revelation Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Quite a different take on global terrorism
Review: Loretta Napoleoni's Modern Jihad isn't just another discussion of Islam or 9/11: it is an informed and informative financial probe of the roots of terror networks, tracing the dollars behind them and how terrorism is funded. From the creation of illegal organizations and subverted international economic systems; to trafficing money to terrorist groups; to smuggling, Modern Jihad is quite a different take on global terrorism and is strongly recommended as a mainstay addition to any serious collection on contemporary terrorism.
Rating:
Summary: From an enthusiastic reader
Review: Modern Jihad is an amazing book. I am overwhelmed by the amount of research that the author conducted to write this book. While reading it I have realised how ignorant I was of what is has taken place in the world for several decades.
I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to have their eyes opened about their past, present and future
| 
